Launching a New Fellowship for Medical Students: The First Years of the Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship Program

Abstract

As part of its commitment to increasing the pipeline of physicians pursuing careers in clinical research, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation launched the Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship (CRF) Program for medical students in 2000. The program, which is based at 10 US medical schools, provides medical students from any US medical school with the opportunity to spend 1 year obtaining both didactic and "hands-on" mentored clinical research experience. This article describes the program and summarizes the early outcomes collected during the first 3.5 years of the program. Interest in the program among medical students has been robust and widespread, with 35% of CRF program fellows matriculated at non-CRF schools. Exit surveys of the first three classes of fellows totaling 174 fellows indicated that (1) 97% of the fellows felt that participating in the fellowship was a good decision; (2) commitment to a career in clinical research was increased among the 44% of fellows reporting that they were unsure about pursuing a clinical research career when they began their fellowship; (3) there was no difference in satisfaction level between the fellows who remained at the medical schools in which they were matriculated and those who completed their fellowship at a medical school in which they were not matriculated; and (4) the majority of fellows responded that the didactic component of their fellowship was useful.

Interest and Involvement in Research During Medical School: a Global Comparison of Students at High- and Low-Income Universities

“…However, several programs have actively incorporated research methodology teachings into their curriculum [5]. Of those, we name the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship (CRF) from the United States [6], as well as the Norwegian Medical Student Research Program in Europe [7]. Previous literature pertaining to the issue of research among medical students has been tackled by few authors in select countries such as Pakistan, India, Brazil, Australia, Ireland, the UK, Canada, and USA among others.…”

Effectiveness of a 1-Year Resident Training Program in Clinical Research: A Controlled Before-and-After Study

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Therefore, the National Institute of Health has recently made substantial investments in training programs and career development awards for junior investigators. 3,8 A wide range of clinical research programs is now accessible, [9][10][11] including feasible types of scaled-down programs in settings where funding is not available. A systematic review of resident research curricula showed some encouraging results regarding increased research productivity of the participants.…”

Is Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) Premedical Education Marginalized in the Medical School Admission Process? A Review and Contextualization of the Literature

“…12 This fellowship program is specifically designed for medical students interested in clinical research, not basic science research, and serves as a complement for MD-PhD programs, which commonly attract students with basic science research interest. 56 In a third approach, medical schools could revise their admission policies to include more than a single or limited number of SSH course prerequisites, as single or limited SSH course prerequisites policies may not have the intended educational outcomes. SSH premedical education with either an SSH major or course concentration, not simply SSH course counts, was associated with the beneficial outcomes noted in our review.…”